


Pale Fire

by pearypie



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Character Study, Dark Humor, Demonic Contracts, Gen, M/M, Retrospective, Seven Deadly Sins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 07:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8523394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearypie/pseuds/pearypie
Summary: Oh, they’re so intertwined it’s sickening. He knows him—he knows him right down to the marrow of his porcelain carved bones. (The master. The demon.)





	

“and finally there was the sleepless night  
when i decided to explore and fight  
the foul, the inadmissible abyss,  
devoting all my twisted life to this  
one task. today i'm sixty-one. waxwings  
are berry-pecking. a cicada sings.”

\- Vladimir Nabokov,  _Pale Fire_

 

* * *

  

He knows his young master, marrow, bone, and blood. Flesh and soul, the boy is his—belongs to him in a way that is both singular and complex. The contract had given this child-earl wax wings and it was Sebastian’s duty as butler and fiend to ensure that he did not stray too close to the sun.

The sun. Warm and fiery, ablaze with the possibility of renewal and baptism—one drop into the ocean and his young master would be revived, as pure and untainted as the day he was born.

It was a hideous, disgusting thought that plagued the demon like nothing else. He cared very little for the lives of those around him; he cared for nothing and no one except his master. The earl was the most beautiful of the seven deadly sins—he was pride, he was greed, and he was wrath incarnate. Poetry was born out of sloth and lust but Ciel Phantomhive avoided these Cyprian shores, favoring Nemesis and her implacable justice near.

To consume his master whole—to suckle him marrow and soul together—that was what the demon yearned for, to press his lips against the child’s pink mouth while his frail body writhed beneath him. It was such a strange sensation, the earl’s movements. His limbs were silk covered glass—fragile and curiously unmarred, as if the moon were apologizing for having gifted him so cruel a fate. He was now too beautiful to die but death would come for him still.

He was pale fire, the false azure of the tumultuous seaside; Sebastian did not know why so many Reapers yearned for his master’s soul but it flattered him to know  _he_ had chosen so beloved a victim. His palate could now be called exquisite; he himself was now exceptional—imagine then, the title! The demon with the silver tongue; the demon whose inclinations and appetites had brought forth death gods, spirits, and the unwavering devotion of fickle, unsure humans.

It was the most delicious dose of vain pomposity and Sebastian _reveled_ in it, for he so loved the shallow praise of people everywhere, not so much for their critique as their unquestioning acceptance of his so-called perfection. 

With these humans—these impressionable, insignificant humans—perfection could be whatever he deemed it to be.

 

When he cleaned the manor and made these high vaulted rooms tidy and spotless, his master hardly noticed and, if he did, no words of praise were given. It was a casual observation that carried little weight but much intrigue; the human plane was a fascinating arena of clownish emotion, where everyone carried an exaggerated sense of self and a careful air of forgetfulness. Perhaps that was why Sebastian found his master so amusing—the sapphire eyed boy noticed everything. He colored it in despair—shades of agony and bitter, closeted shame, the vibrancy of which fed the crow demon and kept at bay the hunger that threatened to consume.

Held down by human hands on an alter of stone, subjected to humiliation and sodomy and black, unyielding hatred—it was no wonder the child longed for perfect beauty. Anything to erase the pain of what had been. (But both he and the demon knew such a wish was impossible.)

It was why Sebastian planted lilacs in the outdoor gardens. Great, fragrant lilac bushes, growing tall with heart-shaped leaves of rich green and numerous clusters of sweet smelling blossoms that heralded the return of spring. He planted these lilac bushes behind the great stone mansion and brought bouquets of it into the house, placing them in crystal vases and setting these vases on marble pillars, bringing a touch of Grecian elegance to the heavy, cloistered English manse. 

 

* * *

 

“Why do you insist on showcasing these incessant flowers everywhere.” Ciel snarls, voice full of blood and vehemence as he tore through letters of disagreement and proclamations of high cost. “It’s sickening. I want them gone.” 

“And what should you like to see instead?”

“Anything,” his master continues, “but these lilac blossoms.”

“Ah,” his ruby eyes glint, “should the blood red rose please your eye?”

“No.” 

“Then perhaps bluebells—a touch of countryside summer.”

“The rest of the world may be enamored with Austen but I find nothing realistic about her novels.” Faint rays of pink streamed in through the windows, bathing the study in an inferno of sunset orange and burning late-night violet. “I care not for the squire’s touch.”

“Shall the dahlia be permissible? Or perhaps the white lotus?”

“Shall a Reaper harvest my soul? Or perhaps I’ll die an unplanned death.” The boy counters, audacious and infuriating. This was the earl on his worst days, full of crude humor and short-tempered want. It reminds the demon that his master is young, still full of spite and childish discontent. 

A price, he supposes, for his soul’s decadence. 

From the recesses of his mind, Sebastian recounts a papier mâché perennial, the shade of dried blood with petals as large as the earl's black eyepatch. 

“Then the oriental poppy.” He suggests. A noblewoman had once given him a bouquet, the two of them standing on the shores of Prey Nokor with a sky of ceaseless diamond stars above them. Dark waves crashed on the beach's still shore, white foam clinging to the sand as she held onto him, tears in her eyes as he struggled to contain his laughter. 

 _Oh,_ how she'd  _loved_ him... 

“I’m not Lau.” His master's brusque rebuke stifles the memory midway and Sebastian thinks he can still smell the opiate sweetness of those blossoms and taste the salty tears of the queen regent's sorrow. 

She had been beautiful—but foolish. 

“And what of the bleeding heart?” The earl is no fool, the demon smiles indulgently, he is shrewd and selfish and  _his_ in the absolute sense. 

The boy opens a new report, scanning the words with a hint of displeasure. “I find it crude.”

“Might the orchid, imported from South Africa, prove satisfactory?” He inquires at last, thinking back to a scene he had once witnessed in St. Petersburg. A child of three or four dressed in furs and cashmere tumbling onto the freshly fallen snow. 

A flower in her hand, staining the white landscape with a bloom of amaranth. 

The earl looks unseeingly at his financial reports, deep in thought and Sebastian, ever dutiful, feigns ignorance. The significance of the orchid is lost on the butler—he does not know the preferences of his master’s deceased parents and, truth be told, he cares very little for them. Nostalgia, he has learned, is a terrible, wakeful nightmare that haunts—with perfect, unfaltering beauty—the souls of humans until they cease to be, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell of decayed possibility. It ruins the flavor of everything. 

But  _d_ _ark vanilla. Sweet orchid._

If there is a fragrance the earl carries, this is it. And, for a moment, the demon thinks his master might regress—might seep into that nostalgia familiar with so many—but instead, the sapphire noble raises his head and nods with imperceptible cruelty.

“That,” he decrees, “is acceptable.”

The butler bows. “Very well, young master.”

The child’s desire, he supposes, is of Arabic origin. _Your wish is my command._

 

* * *

 

Nightfall is a credence of death, soaking the sky with ink and the pinpricks of faint diamond stars. The moon princess and the earth prince. Marble bannisters and crystalline champagne. White, frothing lilies and sparkling winter snow. All of this, bathed against a backdrop of sable velvet and the satin goodness of an evening eclipse.

Phantomhive Manor is quiet as Sebastian tucks the earl into bed, hoisting him up ever so carefully before placing him in a center of sapphire silk and rich black-and-white ermine. The moonlight is pale silver, the color of Selene’s scepter, and the night is dark, lightless and still. An etching made in marble.

“My lord.” Sebastian bows, right hand over his chest. “If that is all…?”

“No.” The earl interrupts, breaking their routine farewell. “Reassure me.” He commands. 

An expression of amused conceit appears on the butler’s face but he hides it well, raising his head and smothering his smile. “Of what, young master?”

“Of death.”

He sets his mouth. “So macabre this evening.”

The earl ignores his snipe. “Eternity holds no appeal and I tire of everything already. Reassure me of death, Sebastian. Remind me that not everything will bloom again.”

“Youth is so fleeting, my lord. Should you not hold onto this fickle gift of life while you can?”

“I could.” He concedes. “But there would be no point. You and I—we are the only ones aware of death’s possibility.”

 _There is much the child does not know_ but Sebastian, the butler, says nothing to protest his master’s statement. A pause lulls the tranquil air around them, bringing to memory silver fruit trees and the gilt metal leaves of chrome lily flowers.

Finally, the crow moves.

“The moon goddess Selene loved her mortal, Endymion, and asked her father Zeus to put him in enteral sleep. There, he would forever retain his youth and beauty while she looked on in glory because he was now hers forever.” The demon licks his lips. “That, young master, shall be your fate. No longer will you breathe the contamination of London but, until time falters, you will remain suspended in the darkness of the abyss—floating and far gone from this world here. You will belong to no one and you will, my lord, find what you so long for." 

His words are careful, cool and gentle. One hand encased in white brushes against the earl's exposed thigh. 

A wry smile appears on the child’s pale face. “I asked you to reassure me Sebastian, not spin a pretty poem of lies.”

“I do not lie.” He corrects. “And what I speak of is a eulogy of the finest sort. Your pyre will be magnificent.” 

“I had not thought the abyss to be so generous a mistress." 

It is not an order.

It is not a statement.

Sebastian holds his tongue.

_Let his master dream a little while longer._

 

He knows this lordling—this childish, infantile earl. He knows him to the marrow of his bones, can taste the essence of who he is when their lips meet.

Ciel’s tongue is hesitant but Sebastian probes further, delving into his master’s mouth with a sense of strange but ardent urgency.

_His lips are sweet—and the scent of lilacs bloom around them._

**Author's Note:**

> \- “Cyprian shores” — refers to the goddess Aphrodite and her place of birth, Cyprus 
> 
> \- “Great, fragrant lilac bushes, growing tall with heart-shaped leaves…” — references Walt Whitman’s poem ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’ (an elegy to President Lincoln) 
> 
> \- Prey Nokor is current day Ho Chi Minh City (or, as I prefer to think of it, Saigon)
> 
> A/N: More character studies. Sebastian and Ciel’s dynamic is just too fascinating not to explore.


End file.
